Air Quality

We write on behalf of our client, the Vistry Group (‘VG’), in respect of the consultation running on North District Hertfordshire Council’s (‘NHDC’) Draft Sustainability Supplementary Planning Document – December 2023 (‘the SPD’).
VG have a strong track record of delivering scheme which maximise opportunities for highly energy efficient fabric and renewable energy measures.

The Government is already proposing to introduce very high levels of energy efficiency via the Future Homes Standards 2025. To meet this standard, not only
will all new homes be delivered with a very energy efficient fabric but also with extensive renewable energy technologies. This standard will be applied to all new
homes and will meet the vision of Sustainability SPD, without the need for additional standards to be set by the Council.

If the Sustainability SPD does propose additional measures that exceed the Future Homes Standards/Building Regulations these must be expressed as an aspiration and not a requirement and must allow for viability considerations.

The SPD aims to provide detailed guidance to support the application of Policy SP1 (Sustainable Development in North Hertfordshire), Policy D1 (Sustainable Design) and other relevant policies in the adopted Local Plan. However, VG have concerns that the Draft SPD lacks sufficient detail, clarity and/or justification to provide the intended level of guidance for developers on the approach that will be taken by the Local Planning Authority (‘the LPA’) to sustainability matters. These areas of concern are outlined below, and VG would welcome clarity from the LPA on these matters in subsequent iterations of the SPD, namely in relation to major residential development.

Section 2 Objectives
Generally speaking, Section 2 of the SPD has a notable amount of text which is very similar to text already in the Local Plan. In some cases, the wording is identical, but
it is less effective in the SPD than in the Local Plan where it is supporting policy text sitting directly under corresponding policies. This section of the SPD therefore does not appear to add specificity, clarity or further objectives beyond the information already provided within the Local Plan and should either be streamlined or omitted
entirely.

Section 3 Technical and General Guidance
Within this Section of the SPD, the language used throughout needs to be clearer as to what is a recommendation, and what is a requirement.
In the same vein, this section does not take the opportunity to provide more clarity on matters within the Local Plan and/or validation checklist which are imprecise.
For example:

- Page 41 states that Applicant’s ‘should’ submit a sustainability statement outlining details of on-site low carbon and renewable energy generation systems. No reference is made to this being proportionate to scale of
development, what level of information is required and whether some applicant’s/development proposals, say householders, would not be expected to provide such a statement.
- Page 47 provides clear and effective guidance as to when Transport Assessments (‘TAs’) will be required, but Page 53 seems to indicate that all developments require a ‘Detailed Demolition and Construction Management Plan’ and ‘detailed Travel Plan’ to be in place prior to
development. This is not in line with the LPA validation checklist, or our experience of standard conditions imposed in North Herts for smaller scales of development. A similar level of clarity and specificity as used for TAs
should be provided to outline when/why these documents would be required.
- Page 53 reiterates that the threshold for whether major developments require an air quality assessment are those proposals which ‘lead to significantly increased car parking / traffic movements’ in line with the Local
Plan. This is an unfortunately imprecise threshold in the Plan, and the SPD fails to utilise the opportunity to provide more specific and standardised criteria for what would be considered significantly increased traffic movements.

- Pages 54-55 provides very specific waste guidance which in places goes beyond what can reasonably be secured as part of major residential development, such as providing segregated internal kitchen bins for waste
and recycling as occupiers would be free to amend an internal kitchen layout to their own specification.

Overall, this section should be carefully reviewed to seek to ensure that each element is effectively worded to avoid the current variance in levels of specificity
and useability.

Checklists
The checklists scattered throughout the document, including at Pages 28, 50 and 64 are unclear in their purpose. The tables are not clearly titled and do not have
supporting text to explain the application or implications of the ‘bronze’, ‘silver’ and ‘gold’ classifications in the main body of the document. For this reason, it may be more efficient to only contain these in the Appendices and simply make appropriate cross-references for continuity purposes.

However, even within the appendices, the purpose of the checklists is unclear. As a ‘checklist’ a minimum expectation would be to set out what development is
expected to meet what level of the checklist and why. Whilst split into different application types, as prepared, the document generates more questions than it
answers, for example:

- Is the bronze level a minimum expectation, if so what would be the implications of not meeting every checklist point?
- Do the checklists effectively act as validation checklists for sustainability matters?
- Would a development meeting the gold criteria be considered to be delivering sustainability benefits over and above the minimum and therefore be attributed as a planning benefit weighing in favour of the proposal? This at least seems to be the case for ‘site wide energy
generation’ as stated on page 78.
- Further, does the weighting system essentially create a framework to be used for the tilted balance exercise?
- Would an allocation site meeting all Bronze criteria and delivering an uplift on its housing allocation numbers be considered less favourably than a development proposal with a lower number of dwellings meeting all of the
Gold criteria?

- Is low carbon and renewable energy generation of the greatest importance, as indicated by page 78, over say waste or air quality or ecology?

The checklists themselves, along with Section 2 of the SPD more generally, focus entirely on environmental sustainability, with the exception of open space
provision. This raises the additional question as to how the different elements of sustainability will be balanced overall such as delivering a socially sustainable level
of housing and infrastructure versus greater environmental provision and this is outlined in more detail below.

Balance of Matters

The SPD acknowledges that sustainability refers to meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs, taking into account social, environmental and economic needs.

Unarguably, one of the greatest barriers to social sustainability is access to sufficient housing products to meet community needs. The Ministerial Statement
by the Secretary of State for DLUHC on 19 December 2023 recognised this by explicitly noting that “The opening chapters of the NPPF have been updated to provide clarity on a core purpose of the planning system: planning for homes and other development that our communities need”.

This provides clear policy direction that housing must be delivered to maintain socially sustainable communities. The necessity to balance this critical need against
environmental matters has also been recognised by Central Government. The ‘Planning - Local Energy Efficiency Standards Update’ Ministerial Statement
published on 13 December 2023 noted that the Government want to strike the best balance between making progress on improving the efficiency and performance of homes whilst still wanting to ensure housing is built in sufficient numbers. It set out the strongly worded expectation that:

“the Government does not expect plan-makers to set local energy efficiency standards for buildings that go beyond current or planned buildings regulations. The proliferation of multiple, local standards by local authority area can add further costs to building new homes by adding complexity
and undermining economies of scale. Any planning policies that propose local energy efficiency standards for buildings that go beyond current or planned buildings regulation should be rejected at examination if they do
not have a well-reasoned and robustly costed rationale.”

The SPD itself recognises that it cannot add unnecessary financial burdens on development. However, there is no mechanism in the production of the document to assess this; it is not viability tested or subject to the same examination process as the Local Plan. It is very probable that the requirements of the SPD will place greater financial burden upon new development. For example, there is now a much greater emphasis than in the Local Plan on low carbon and renewable energy generation on site and specific requirements for a Whole Life Carbon Assessment for all major developments with a minimum of 10% site construction waste being recycled. These are requirements which goes significantly above building
regulation requirements and will be challenging for developers to achieve without financial burden which would impact on development viability.

Further, the concern is that throughout the SPD, greater weight/emphasis is given to environmental sustainability matters over social and economic sustainability
aspects. This raises the questions as to whether the expectation of major development will be to meet all of the Gold level of environmental sustainability if any uplift in housing is to be supported. As noted, this goes against national policy direction which wants to see the correct balance with housing delivery and efficient use of land.

For example, Paragraph 129a) of the NPPF outlines that:

“Area-based character assessments, design guides and codes and masterplans can be used to help ensure that land is used efficiently while also creating beautiful and sustainable places. Where there is an existing or anticipated shortage of land for meeting identified housing needs, it is especially important that planning policies and decisions avoid homes being built at low densities, and ensure that developments make optimal use of the potential of each site. In these circumstances:

a) plans should contain policies to optimise the use of land in their area and meet as much of the identified need for housing as possible. This will be tested robustly at examination, and should include the use of minimum density standards for city and town centres and other locations that are well served by public transport. These standards should seek a significant uplift in the average
density of residential development within these areas, unless it can be shown that there are strong reasons why this would be inappropriate;”

In North Herts, significant housing sites in the District are subject to such a Masterplan process which means there is already a mechanism to help balance efficient use of land against creating beautiful and sustainable places. It is not clear what role the SPD’s checklists and varying thresholds will play in the preparation of future Masterplans and the level of housing which will be supported over environmental targets.

This is particularly relevant considering that in the North Herts, the majority of the significant housing sites are Green Belt releases and therefore making the optimum
use of released land, balanced against design, character and sustainability considerations (as ensured by the Masterplan process) is of significant value and importance, given the exceptional housing need which was used to justify such boundary amendments. Further, recent national policy changes mean that it is unlikely that future such land will be released for housing, providing a limited opportunity to deliver on this need.

It is also more important than ever to make efficient use of allocated housing sites in North Herts given latest data and assessment work has indicated that NHDC do
not currently have a five-year housing land supply. This could leave the District open to lower quality speculative development in the near future.

Making efficient use of land also means more sustainable building practices due to the efficiencies that can be achieved in construction activities (embodies carbon)
rather than a reliance on a great number of smaller sites to deliver infrastructure needs which inevitably will result in less effective construction method/programmes.

Summary
Overall, VG are concerned that the lack of absolute clarity within the SPD will mean that local requirements will be applied in an ineffective and onerous manner which
will place significant cost burden on future developments.

We trust that the matters outlined above will be adequately addressed in the subsequent versions of the emerging SPD and we would be grateful if you could ensure that we are consulted on future stages of the document.